Description: Chairperson's column for the May 2023 issue of NewsDirect discussing the Section's strategic themes for the year.

Description: The article summarizes the results of the 2024 Life Reinsurance Survey of Individual Life and Group Life business written in the traditional life reinsurance markets of the United States and Canada. The article summarizes the new business volume written in 2024 and 2023 as well as the volume of ceded reinsurance in force at year-end 2024 and 2023.

Description: It is with great pleasure that we announce the winner of the “2024 Best Article” in Reinsurance News. Amongst a pool of exceptional articles, the article “What Does the Future of Mortality Look Like?” submitted by Adam Jedynak and Connie Cheng was chosen by the jury as the victorious submission. The article appeared in the June 2024 issue of Reinsurance News. It explores recent shifts in mortality, including post-COVID excess mortality, and looks at the impact of medical advancements and societal changes on mortality.

Description: New digital data known as alternative data is everywhere. Our industry has seen the financial, and hi-tech industries leverage new digital data to expand their key offerings and core services. From the lens of the global life and health industry, new digital data is still searching to be further understood. Risk assessment is a current focus area for using alternative data. A key question is even though risk assessment has always been data-driven, can it now move to the next level with the arrival of this alternative data. Can we use alternative data to make the risk assessment process quicker, cheaper, or faster thereby driving more sales and better conversion rates. It is an exciting time! With the increased adoption of health and well-being apps, data such as physical activity, nutrition, sleep, and mental wellness is now readily available. Expanded data such as digital biomarkers, IoT data, electronic health records and many more can also be accessed. However, how to effectively implement alternative data remains a challenge across the industry. We firmly believe it is, and will continue to be, imperative to take a structured approach to alternative data through a set of key considerations and a framework of principles.

Description: This article details different methods for calculating mortality impact associated with new underwriting programs. A common simplified calculation is compared and contrasted with two first principles approaches. The strengths and weaknesses of both approaches are discussed.

Description: Future mortality improvement has been a common assumption in life insurance and annuity pricing and forecasting for many years. However, experience over the last decade suggests this might be an assumption that merits reconsideration in the United States. This article will take a closer look at factors that impact mortality improvement trends and discuss why insurers may want to reevaluate product designs to better manage the associated mortality risk. We then introduce a product idea with this in mind, where premiums are based on a life expectancy index and insurers share the risk (and opportunity) or mortality improvement with policyholders.

Description: Meet Christine Hofbeck. Christine is pushing the boundaries of traditional life and general insurance by finding problems and fixing them with new technology, modeling methods and sources of data. Most recently, she built a predictive analytics team at one of the world's largest financial services institutions to support the pricing team for a $5 billion portfolio covering life, disability, critical illness and more.

Description: ReFocus is an annual global conference for senior-level life insurance and reinsurance executives hosted jointly by ACLI and the Society of Actuaries (SOA). This event features top-notch speakers, thought-provoking sessions, and superior networking opportunities.

Description: Join us for this popular annual webcast covering the latest considerations for the year's U.S. statutory financial reporting work. Get ready to hear from three expert speakers, who will discuss cash flow testing and this year’s New York and California holiday letters, the impact of recent interest rate changes including treatment of negative IMR, potential changes to statutory financial reporting due to climate change, and updates regarding Principle Based Reserves.

Description: There are a variety of regulatory changes that are being contemplated by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) that have the potential to materially impact actuarial, statutory reporting and disclosure requirements relating to reinsurance. This session will provide an introduction to these changes, explaining both the motivation as well as the potential impact these proposed changes may have on US ceding companies. The focus of the presentation will be primarily on changes affecting Asset Adequacy Testing and statutory risk transfer for combination Coinsurance / Yearly Renewable Term agreements. An update will be provided regarding industry responses to proposed changes and the potential timing for implementation of these new requirements.